Moodle.org forum posts

Course completion vs. activity restriction

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 15:34:31 GMT

by John Provasnik

As of Moodle 4.5 - what you're observing is correct: The percentage on the Dashboard is based on the # of Activities in the course with Completion Conditions set (regardless if a student has access to it or if it's hidden). So then I usually tell students to go into the course and view the Completion Progress block for a more accurate representation of their progress as this respects both visibility and Restrict Access conditions.

There was discussion here https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=468677 and a link to MDL-51447 which might have corrected this behavior on Moodle 5.0

MathJax and screen reader functionality

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 13:59:56 GMT

by Rony Nitrax

Hi Kerry,

One thing worth checking is whether Moodle is actually rendering the equations through MathJax or through the server-side TeX filter.

If the equation ends up being displayed as an image, that could explain why NVDA isn't reading the mathematical content properly.

It might also be worth testing the same expression outside Moodle, using MathJax directly, to see whether the issue comes from MathJax itself or from Moodle's integration.

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 07:31:50 GMT

by Lucie Grenouilleau

Hi Visvanath,
The block is exactly the solution I was looking for, and it's how I ended up on this forum 😂 I might have found a few solutions (one free but not sure it will be maintained in the future, and one paid).
So, yes, in the mean time the bell is how students can check the notifications but most of them don't pay attention to that and I was looking for something more visible (hence the block to add on the dashboard and/or the course page).
For us, logging into Moodle first is not an issue as it's part of their daily routine. But in other contexts, I agree a block doesn't necessarily help...

Dark mode

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 10:58:44 GMT

by Gareth Barnard

Hello,

Moodle 5.3 brings with it a 'Dark mode' that allows you to switch to an alternative dark colour scheme. To explain my thoughts on this, I've written a post on eLearningWorld (run by HRDNZ, a Moodle Partner): www.elearningworld.org/dark-mode.

The setting mentioned 'enablecolourmodes' is experimental and I've found that there are areas where core fixes are required.

What do you think? Is this a good thing?

Cheers,

Gareth

New release, including security fixes, please update

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 10:22:57 GMT

by Juan Leyva

Hello,

as announced here, there is a new release of the plugin with a critical security fix.

In the era of AI, frequent releases addressing long-standing security issues will become common practice. I strongly recommend setting up a process or automated mechanism to keep your plugins updated promptly.

Regards, Juan

SCORM package timeout

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 02:33:45 GMT

by Jeff Larsen

Hi Michelle, I don't think the AICC HACP timeout will help. It only applies to AICC packages using HACP, not SCORM.

Since the 2x speed run works and the long one doesn't, something is probably timing out before the score gets saved. A few things to try:

In the SCORM activity settings, under Compatibility settings, set Auto-commit to Yes. Then Moodle saves progress along the way instead of only at the end.
Check your Moodle session timeout (Site admin > Server > Session handling). If it's shorter than the course, the final save can get rejected.
If the package loads the course from the vendor's server, ask them whether their session or token expires.

If none of that fixes it, turn on API debugging under the SCORM package admin settings and run the long version once. It'll show whether the score is ever sent and whether the final commit fails.

HotPot on Moodle 5.3

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 14:41:35 GMT

by Norbert Berger

Dear Gordon,

I hope you're well. I'm testing mod_hotpot on a fresh Moodle 5.3 installation (PHP 8.3, MariaDB 11.4) and hit an installation blocker.

Moodle 5.3 refuses to install the plugin with:

The FEATURE_GROUPMEMBERSONLY feature has been deprecated and is no longer
supported. It should no longer be declared in the plugin.
Error code: detectedbrokenplugin

Stack trace:
line 891 of /public/lib/upgradelib.php: plugin_defective_exception thrown
line 677 of /public/lib/upgradelib.php: call to upgrade_plugins_modules()
line 1979 of /public/lib/upgradelib.php: call to upgrade_plugins()
line 757 of /public/admin/index.php: call to upgrade_noncore()

The triggering line is in mod/hotpot/lib.php, line 63, inside the hotpot_supports() function:

'FEATURE_GROUPMEMBERSONLY' => true, // default=false

The FEATURE_GROUPMEMBERSONLY constant was removed from core in Moodle 5.x (the old "Available for group members only" feature was replaced by the conditional availability / "Restrict access" system back in Moodle 2.8). Since the plugin already uses the modern array-based _supports() declaration, this appears to be the only change needed for installation to succeed.

I have commented it out so the plugin installs ok. Will test for further issues.

I have not yet tested the plugin beyond the installation stage, so there may be further deprecated API calls that surface afterwards. I'll report those separately if I find them, and I'm happy to test any patches you produce.

Thanks for maintaining this plugin over the years — it's much appreciated.

Best regards,

Norbert Berger from Austria
PS: HAven't got a github profile so I hope my message reaches you here.

Preventing AI Cheating in Moodle 5 Quizzes

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 17:28:46 GMT

by Visvanath Ratnaweera

> embedding hidden instructions in Moodle quiz questions that tell AI tools like ChatGPT not to answer if a student copies and pastes the question

Reminded me of https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/25/2114259/32-of-35-students-caught-using-hilariously-wrong-ai-generated-answers-for-professors-midterm. Truely hilarious. Especially that many students haven't even read what they've submitted.

How well that kind of trickery works in quizzes is doubtful. The usual method is lock-down, not detection post-action. The Safe Exam Browser is the most widely used Free and Open Source product.

Only weakly connected, other than was in the news yesterday: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/10/25/235241/ai-use-convinces-california-math-professor-theres-no-point-grading-homework.

Final reminder: Accessible Moodle development session tomorrow (developer meeting)

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 09:08:43 GMT

by Leon Stringer

Jordi, you're a day early I think!

Moodle 5 slow performance despite good server resources

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 23:58:55 GMT

by Brett Dalton

Ideally you would move to a supported version but if that's not an option I'd start by upgrading to 5.0.12 (it will be released on the 12th Nov). If you check the release notes there are a significant number of performance improvements between that and 5.0.3.

https://moodledev.io/general/releases/5.0

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 06:50:24 GMT

by Visvanath Ratnaweera

Hi

Last thing first:

> Lastly, we'd also like to know the level of education you're currently teaching, typical class size, and whether or not you use groups.

More prominent was the past: tertiary, engineering subjects. Currently a whole assortment: rare, compulsory modules in the same setup, periodic voluntary short courses for the same audience, spontaneous adult training in related but broader topics. And "courses" abused as the hub of (FOSS) communities. Moodle has everything a community/work group needs in a wide variety of types!

Here is an example of a periodic voluntary short course: Start talking the Unix command language. As an OER open for guest access. Some recent adult training and community hubs are hosted under LEARN-EduNET.LK Collaboration - accessible to the participants only. (You will recognize some well-known names on moodle.org among the guest teachers. )

Now to your three questions:
> 1) When choosing a forum to post in: Which forums do you typically post in your courses and why?

I think, you mean what forum type I choose for a particular forum activity. I quickly checked. Standard forum, Each person posts one discussion and Q and A forum are the most common, in that order. And almost every course has the Announcement forum.

Why? I have the exact scenarios that these types are designed for. Describing examples will make this post very long, and it'll become stating the obvious.

> Are there any forums that you avoid? What's the reason for avoiding them?

Noticed that the Standard form in a blog-like format was never used. I think, I personally find the display doesn't have the overview one needs in a threaded discussion (unlike the Standard forum).

> 2) How do you typically set up a forum, specifically the settings that change or stay the same?

Nothing changed in the Announcement forum. I don't think the Standard forum used as help resp. general discussion needs any changes either. Uses as a support forum timed discussion locking,.. minute things I might polish even after the course has been set. Yeah, when I duplicate a course for the next round, most of the settings remain. But open to correct mistakes from last time.

> 3) As a teacher, what are the biggest challenges when using and posting in the forums? How are you currently managing these challenges?

I don't know what special challenges the forums bring. Forums are a part of teaching. And teaching is _the_ job. Sure the job demands something, but don't know how I can divide that in to parts and assign some to the Forum activity.

P.S. Noticed that the post has become long and could be even longer. Which makes me to ask the fundamental question: Can experience be transferred? I understand, it is convenient to let experience be served. But for it to last, experience needs practice!

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 17:51:44 GMT

by Gareth Barnard

The problem here I think is not technical rather than a fracturing of the Moodle ecosystem itself. The technical exhibiting the nature of the fault.

The Plugin's database was the main source for all plugins and facilitated a means to prevent name clashes(*) along with AMOS introduction. Now, I do not want to get into the debate about Moodle Marketplace, nor my view or current situation, which is fluid. What there needs to be here is a human solution to a human created problem.

(*) Anthony Borrow used to manage plugin approval in CONTRIB in the tracker - from memory - thus a person co-ordination name allocation to prevent conflicts.

Therefore we need a 'Plugin name registry' that links to AMOS and the language packs, for the sake of cleaning up the mess and the impression to the world that mess has.

I do agree that AMOS for languages other than English (Australian / British 'en' - is there an 'en_au'? ;) ) - should override the plugin's own versions, simply because AMOS allows native speakers to provide a better validated translation than the non-native speaking developer or AI translator. Languages are human and AI is not human. It also continues the Moodle ethos of collaboration and community driven development towards a goal that benefits the many not the few.

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 17:07:18 GMT

by Petr Skoda

Hi Séverin,

there is the other problem with non-unique plugin names. Since the introduction of the new proprietary Marketplace there is no way to register an arbitrary Moodle plugin name anywhere. The CAMP registry is facing the same problem.

This means that if the component is not part of the official Moodle distro then there is no way to make sure the language pack downloaded from AMOS is actually intended for the installed plugin. There is a similar problem with internal plugin forks where admins cannot store their own lang pack tweaks in git.

Thanks to AI the translation itself is very cheap and quick for plugin developers, all we need is a review of lang strings from native speakers. It is so much simpler to commit everything into normal git repository, I even have phpunit tests to make sure all supported translations have 100% coverage. Reviewers can simply email me, create github issues or submit merge requests.

In any case I think it would be appropriate to remove all plugins that are not in the Marketplace from AMOS because it does not even know where are the latest plugin releases.

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 15:59:13 GMT

by Séverin TERRIER

Hi Petr (and David),

I'll try to put my 2 cents, knowing i'm not a programmer (anymore, since years), but a french Moodle administrator, involved in french translation (quality, and plugins).

I think that if Moodle has been made so that translations provided by the community (with AMOS) are used over the one provided in plugin files, it's because a programmer is not someone that will perfectly know each existing language, and it seems more logical to let community handle this part.

And for sure it was the good decision for years.
Of course, people making translations could make errors, without knowing the exact context of each sentence.
But, when seeing these errors by time, using plugins deeply, it was easy for anybody to provide a correction in AMOS, with no need to contact plugin programmer or have to configure anything with Git or other tool.

Nowadays, with AI more and more accurate, and agents, i also understand Petr's point.

But i would also argue that, even better by the time, agents also make errors, or don't handle well some habits of translations vocabulary by language (or other little details). Like for other things, i don't think we can completly rely on AI automation, without a human validation.

And if translations are only handled by plugin's programmer, i feel it will be more complicated for anybody in the community to provide corrections of these automated (by AI) translations.

I don't have a solution, but just wanted to expose these points, to help everybody thing about all of that.

Perhaps something could be made to let a choice (by plugin) for the order of strings place to use, allowing to give precedence to AMOS or plugin files?

HTH,
Séverin

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

Tue, 03 Nov 2026 21:28:19 GMT

by David Mudrák

Hi Petr.

Good question. Thank you for raising it.

It is very annoying that Moodle core ignores the translations distributed in my plugins

To be clear, Moodle does not ignore translations distributed with your plugins. When there are translated strings available both in your plugin's source code and the language pack, the standard strings manager class prefers those in the language pack over those in your plugin. This may be behaviour that does fit your current needs well. Yet, as you very well know, it has been designed and implemented with some sound reasoning behind. I agree it is something that might be reconsidered, changed, made configurable and so on.

I personally think that the AMOS translation UI is now obsolete

I personally agree with your personal thinking.

anybody can use AI agents to create pull requests with new lang strings

Same as anybody can use their human skills, or machine skills or whatever to submit improvements and fixes to the translations present in AMOS. AMOS was written exactly for that purpose -- to gather translator community contributions. And AI agents and other machines can be part of this translator community. We've been always kind, open and welcoming to the new members, human or not.

How can I remove all my plugins

Your plugins are not in AMOS. AMOS has registered English strings present in your plugin source code, fully in accordance with the GNU/GPL. And the strings were then translated by other contributors who have spent their own time and resources by translating them into their language.

It's not only your work. Simply removing "your" plugins from AMOS would also hide and ignore creditable work of others who contributed there with good intentions to produce and share something useful. I don't think Moodle HQ should do it easily, if ever.

If you believe you have a better version of translation for some Moodle plugin, share them via AMOS. If you find the UI and the process painful, feel encouraged to contribute patches to make it smoother.

Ciao

[moodle.org] Does the advanced search work? [RESOLVED]

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 13:29:27 GMT

by Visvanath Ratnaweera

Hello Sinthia

Thanks a lot!

I don't remember exactly what I searched for, my screenshot didn't catch the whole search string. The main thing, the Advanced search works.

Matter RESOLVED

Moodle 5 slow performance despite good server resources

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 14:03:26 GMT

by Ken Task

@Steph Scicluna ...

You've piggy-backed on someone else's posting. So reponses to issues may/may not be the same for both postings.

Do agree with another's response ... your 5.0.x version is no longer supported and your site is due for an upgrade. 5.0 uses old structure and beginning 5.1 massive changes. Highest available version of moodle is now 5.3+. Plus some plugins/addons have not made it to higher versions of Moodle yet. So you have some research to do before upgrading.

Suggestions:

Go to System Admin -> Environment and update component. Then choose each higher version of Moodle in drop down list to see what you might need to do before upgrading to the Moodle version chosen in the drop down.

Install 'tree' ... will help when upgrading to moodle versions where structure change took place.

The other major issue will be the router ... not really in play with 5.0 ... will be in 5.1 and higher.

See: https://docs.moodle.org/503/en/Configuring_the_Router

'SoS', Ken

HEADS UP: Minor release coming 12 November

Fri, 06 Nov 2026 20:05:05 GMT

by Michael Hawkins

Hi everyone,

Further to Matt's post on 3 November, I can confirm that the additional minor release is now scheduled for Thursday, 12 November. This releases will include a number of security and general bug fixes in versions 5.3.1, 5.2.5, 5.1.9 and 4.5.16.

In line with our regression patching process, we will also be releasing version 5.0.12 to fix a regression in H5P functionality that was introduced by a security fix in LMS 5.0.11 (other supported versions will also receive this fix). For more information, please see MDL-90215. Please note that due to 5.0.x being out of security support since 5 October, the regression fix is the only item addressed in 5.0.12, no security or other bug fixes will be included in that version. If you are currently using LMS 5.0.x we recommend you upgrade to a supported version as soon as possible to continue receiving important security updates and bug fixes.

The minor release already scheduled for 7 December will still go ahead as planned.

Kind regards,

Mick Hawkins
Product Manager - Community Contributions

Version	Release status	Initial release	General support ends	Security support ends
4.5 (LTS)	Current security	7 Oct 2024	6 Oct 2025	4 Oct 2027
5.0	Out of support	14 Apr 2025	20 Apr 2026	5 Oct 2026
5.1	Current security	6 Oct 2025	5 Oct 2026	19 Apr 2027
5.2	Current stable	20 Apr 2026	19 Apr 2027	4 Oct 2027
5.3 (LTS)	Current stable	5 Oct 2026	4 Oct 2027	1 Oct 2029
6.0	Future stable	19 Apr 2027	17 Apr 2028	2 Oct 2028

Content Pages Development (mod_icontent)

Sat, 07 Nov 2026 19:23:54 GMT

by AL Rachels

Well, I have moved on past Rubrics, with Documentation falling even further behind. LOL Along with help from both Copilot Pro+ and Gemini the navigation to other pages based on "answers" has been greatly improved. Right at the moment work is progressing on adding capability to access and use all the capabilities for Content Pages in the Moodle Mobile App.

My biggest problem is that in my development site tracker tickets, the number of open tickets for Content Pages seems to grow at nearly the same pace as I can clear them. LOL I think I am just going to have to force myself to do a code freeze and put out a new Content Pages v4.0.0, within the next few days, so I can take a break for the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday here in the US.

Hopefully, by the end of my work day, I will have the code over on my demo site and maybe in github.

Embedded numerical answer fields (Cloze) not being displayed of the same size

Sun, 08 Nov 2026 03:29:25 GMT

by Dominique Bauer

Although adding custom CSS can solve the problem in a particular case, it is not a solution built into the question type itself.

For a more general, convenient, and manageable solution, I would suggest a small extension to the Cloze question syntax, allowing teachers to specify the desired width of each input field directly in the subquestion definition.

This extension would apply only to SHORTANSWER, SHORTANSWER_C, and NUMERICAL subquestions, where students type their answers into an input field. It would not affect dropdown menus, radio buttons, or checkboxes.

The proposed syntax could be as follows, using SHORTANSWER as an example. The same options would be available for SHORTANSWER_C and NUMERICAL.

1. Default behaviour (unchanged)

{1:SHORTANSWER:=answer}

This is the current syntax and behaviour. The width of each input field is determined by the length of the longest possible answer, plus a small random amount (up to 15%).

The purpose of this random variation is questionable, as it does not appear to provide any significant pedagogical benefit. Nevertheless, the existing behaviour would be preserved for full backward compatibility.

2. Fixed width

{1:SHORTANSWER(150px):=answer}

The input field would have a fixed width of 150px, regardless of the length of the student's answer.

If the entered text exceeds the specified width, the student could continue typing normally, and the text would scroll horizontally within the field as necessary.

3. Automatically adjusting width

{1:SHORTANSWER(150px,300px):=answer}

The input field would initially be 150px wide. As the student types, its width would automatically increase or decrease to accommodate the entered text, within the specified limits of 150px and 300px.

Once the maximum width is reached, the field would stop expanding, but the student could continue typing normally. The text would scroll horizontally within the field as necessary.

4. Automatic width without random variation

{1:SHORTANSWER(*):=answer}

The input field width would be determined by the longest possible answer, as in the current implementation, but without the additional random variation of up to 15%.

This would provide more consistent field widths without requiring teachers to specify numerical dimensions.

Supported units and validation

Widths could be specified using any of the following CSS units:

px (pixels): an absolute CSS length unit.
em: a relative unit based on the font size of the input field.
rem: a relative unit based on the font size of the document's root element.

Decimal values would be permitted, using a dot as the decimal separator and no spaces, for example 7.5em.

To prevent unreasonable dimensions, the following limits could be enforced:

px: minimum 40px, maximum 2000px.
em and rem: minimum 2.5em/rem, maximum 125em/rem.

When two widths are specified, both must use the same unit, and the maximum width must be greater than or equal to the minimum width.

Implementation

These width options have already been successfully implemented in the Cloze on Image question type.

If there is any interest in extending the standard Moodle Cloze question type in this way, I would be happy to provide the relevant code through the Moodle Tracker.

I believe this would be a relatively modest enhancement that could significantly improve the flexibility, usability, and visual consistency of Cloze questions.

Urgent for PostgreSQL 14: Upcoming End-of-Life (EOL) for PostgreSQL 14 & PHP 8.2

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 16:38:52 GMT

by Ken Task

2 cents more ... a site for keeping up with EOL's:

https://endoflife.date/

has info for everything related to the running of a moodle site ... including moodle!

PHP, MySQL, MariaDB, PostGres, etc. Plus Operating Systems.

'SoS', Ken

New open-source Typesense global search plugin (search_typesense) for Moodle 4.1 - 5.x (awaiting Plugins Directory review)

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 17:31:05 GMT

by Christopher Murad

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a new open-source (GPLv3) global search engine plugin I built for Moodle 4.1 through 5.x (search_typesense), along with an optional AWS CloudFormation template (aws/typesense.yaml).

It just passed the automated checks on Moodle Marketplace / Plugins directory and is currently in the queue awaiting human review, so I wanted to share the GitHub repo in case anyone running a larger Moodle site wants to test it out or offer feedback.

GitHub repository (GPLv3): https://github.com/mfgroupllc/moodle-search_typesense

Why I built it

On Moodle sites with several years of archived courses and 50k - 100k+ users, we ran into two pain points with standard global search:

Infrastructure overhead with Apache Solr / Elastic: Maintaining a Java JVM, tuning heap sizes, managing schema.xml, and compiling the PECL solr C-extension into PHP-FPM across PHP 8.1 / 8.2 / 8.3 upgrades was a recurring headache. Typesense runs as a single native C++ binary under systemd on a lightweight ~$16/mo t3.small (replacing $250+/mo managed OpenSearch / Elastic clusters), auto-creates its schema via API, and communicates with Moodle over standard HTTPS using Moodle's native curl client (zero PHP extensions required).
Context pre-calculation timeouts & historical archive noise: When a user has access to hundreds or thousands of historical courses, pre-calculating every course context before running a search can take 10+ seconds, and active students get buried in results from old terms.

What `search_typesense` includes

Candidate-first pagination controller: Pre-filters candidates in Typesense first and runs Moodle's native check_access(), group, and context checks only on the candidate batch being rendered (~250ms - 350ms search latency with 100% of Moodle's permission checks preserved).
Active vs. Historical course scopes: Includes a 1-click Infer Active Categories admin tool that analyses course dates, modifications, and enrolment velocity so searches default to Current courses while Historical / other courses and Everything remain one click away.
Accent, diacritic, and typo tolerance: Built-in Unicode accent folding (resume matches résumé, naive matches naïve) and typo tolerance out of the box.
Role-aware user identity search: Allows admins to index idnumber, email, and custom user profile fields while strictly checking Moodle viewer capabilities (moodle/site:viewuseridentity, moodle/user:viewalldetails) before querying or displaying user metadata.
Native Video Time (mod_videotime) auto-detection: Automatically adds a dedicated Video Time search tab when mod_videotime is installed.
Bulk NDJSON batch indexing: Implements supports_add_document_batch() to index 100k+ records in under 20 seconds.
1-Command AWS CloudFormation template (aws/typesense.yaml): Deploys a hardened Amazon Linux 2023 (t3.small) Typesense instance into an existing VPC with port 8108 locked to your Moodle web security group and encrypted gp3 storage.

If you manage a mid-to-large Moodle instance and have been looking for a lighter alternative to Solr or Elasticsearch, I would love any feedback, bug reports, or suggestions on GitHub!

Chris Murad

Filter Text

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 16:18:14 GMT

by Juan Leyva

Hi Craig,

try:

SELECT * FROM prefix_groups_members AS gm
WHERE 1=1 %%FILTER_SEARCHTEXT_mygroupid:gm.groupid:=%%

OR

SELECT * FROM prefix_groups_members AS gm
WHERE 1=1 %%FILTER_SEARCHTEXT_c1:gm.groupid:=%%

It seems you were using an idnumber; If I recall correctly you can also leave it empty and then just use FILTER_SEARCHTEXT

Filter Text

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 16:19:21 GMT

by Juan Leyva

Also, se = rather than ~ for an id. ~ means "contains" (a case-insensitive LIKE '%value%'), so searching for group 1 would also match groups 10, 11, 21, 100 and so on

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:44 GMT

by Berta Rincon

Hi Eduardo,

Thank you for taking the time, and for sharing what you built. Your comments are all very interesting, and the teacher table is a good example of someone solving the problem in practice rather than in theory.

On mobile, I agree it matters. Usage has shifted a lot towards phones, I'd say I am part of that generation myself ☺️, and we are working on responsiveness as part of our work. On your wider point, we have quite a lot of student research and much less on the educator side, which is part of why I’m here asking these questions 😊

Thanks again for the thoughtful reply! 🙌🏼

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Fri, 06 Nov 2026 00:40:59 GMT

by Eduardo Kraus

Hi Lucie,

I agree with you, and Moodle forums still remind me a lot of the old Orkut, when we had to go from profile to profile or from community to community just to find out if someone had posted something new.

I help many people here in my town with their classes and their learning platforms, and one thing that always catches my attention is that whenever I pick up someone's phone to help them, I often find hundreds of unread emails. Many people simply don't keep up with their email, so sending notifications doesn't help much when they just get lost among hundreds of other messages.

I think those of us who work with Moodle make a fairly common mistake: we think about features based on our own experience. We're used to working with email, navigating through multiple pages, and searching for information, but we forget that many students don't use technology that way. This reminds me of a discussion I recently started here on Moodle.org:

Moodle needs more empathy for students learning on their Phones.

In that discussion, I talked about how we tend to think about Moodle while sitting in front of computers with large screens, while many students do practically everything on their phones. It's not enough to check whether a feature works on a phone. We need to actually try using it as someone who is there to learn, not someone who is there to test Moodle.

The same thing happens with forums. To us, it seems perfectly normal for students to open their course, check their email, find the forum, open discussions, and reply. Today, almost every social network can show you what's new in one place, while in Moodle we still expect students to go looking for what has changed in each forum or keep track of everything through email.

We're developing Moodle for administrators, not for students.

I think we need to listen more to these people, especially those who struggle with the platform, because those of us who use Moodle every day eventually get used to things that shouldn't be so complicated in the first place.

Best regards,
Eduardo Kraus

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 06:58:20 GMT

by Lucie Grenouilleau

Hi Berta
Glad my perspective can help!

Groups: Both! One of our programs is very particular. Over the course of 20 weeks, our students have different courses, with one week focused on one or two topics. And the students are divided into 20 groups, each of them focusing on a topic at a different time. So in the end, everyone studies everything but not in the same order. So, for one semester, we have only 1 course page per topic, with 20 groups on each page. Sometimes the same activity is used throughout the semester and we use the "separate groups" setting, but sometimes we duplicate the activity 20 times (once for each group) because we want to play with the due dates on the calendar (and in that case we use the restriction settings).

Ratings: I think when I wrote, I was thinking of individual ratings, but actually I think both are really useful! As an instructional designer, I never used any of those options, but I'd like to use them one day! As a student, my teachers in a language course used the grading functionality.

New messages on the forum: We decided to use the forum a bit more because students were complaining that they received too many emails (mainly from different departments in the school (program coordination, student affairs, internship office, committees, etc., etc.) and teachers themselves). So we created one forum on each course page with optional subscription. Currently, I think only teachers write to students. So, either the students manually subscribe to the forum and get an email (barely anyone did this), or they think of checking the forum each day (not sure anyone does that), or they just miss the info.
So when picturing the block, it would be great to have it both on the dashboard and the course page. "New" would be every new post/asnwer since the last visit. Maybe with the forums you subscribed to first and a second part with the other forums, which you could hide/collapse.

Who is the "Moodle bot" in Moodle in English Matrix chat room?

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 18:32:11 GMT

by Mary Cooch (inactive account)

As far as I remember it is a bot Martin created a while back and it gives extra info about Moodle based on key words. I find it a bit annoying really

Urgent for PostgreSQL 14: Upcoming End-of-Life (EOL) for PostgreSQL 14 & PHP 8.2

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 15:01:02 GMT

by Philipp Kropp

Hi everyone,

just a quick heads-up regarding the End-of-Life (EOL) of PostgreSQL and PHP versions that might be currently in use:

PostgreSQL 14 runs out of Support this Thursday. EOL 12th of November 2026
I strongly suggest updating to at least PostgreSQL 17 - 19, because Moodle 5.3 works with Postgresql 17.

PHP 8.2 runs out of Support end of 2026. EOL 31th of Dezember 2026

PHP 8.1 is already EOL since end of last year! So if you are still on PHP 8.1 I strongly recommend updating asap.
For PHP 8.2 you already should prepare the process for updating.

Hope it helps some of you.

Stay safe.

Best regards
Philipp

[moodle.org] Does the advanced search work?

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 10:58:40 GMT

by Mary Cooch (inactive account)

Ok I am not here really but I made this MDLSITE-8611

Moodle.org forum posts

Course completion vs. activity restriction

MathJax and screen reader functionality

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Dark mode

New release, including security fixes, please update

SCORM package timeout

HotPot on Moodle 5.3

Preventing AI Cheating in Moodle 5 Quizzes

Final reminder: Accessible Moodle development session tomorrow (developer meeting)

Moodle 5 slow performance despite good server resources

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

How to remove lang strings for my plugins from AMOS?

[moodle.org] Does the advanced search work? [RESOLVED]

Moodle 5 slow performance despite good server resources

HEADS UP: Minor release coming 12 November

Content Pages Development (mod_icontent)

Embedded numerical answer fields (Cloze) not being displayed of the same size

1. Default behaviour (unchanged)

2. Fixed width

3. Automatically adjusting width

4. Automatic width without random variation

Supported units and validation

Implementation

Urgent for PostgreSQL 14: Upcoming End-of-Life (EOL) for PostgreSQL 14 & PHP 8.2

New open-source Typesense global search plugin (search_typesense) for Moodle 4.1 - 5.x (awaiting Plugins Directory review)

Why I built it

What search_typesense includes

Filter Text

Filter Text

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Help us understand how teachers use the Forum activity

Who is the "Moodle bot" in Moodle in English Matrix chat room?

Urgent for PostgreSQL 14: Upcoming End-of-Life (EOL) for PostgreSQL 14 & PHP 8.2

[moodle.org] Does the advanced search work?

What `search_typesense` includes